So, Kevin Rose delivered a “State of the Union” at the Future of Web Apps Summit. Its a pity there isn’t a transcript somewhere, but its been covered by a few interesting sites already. Over at Wired, ZDNet, and The Register, for example. The Web Strategist too. From what I can piece together, he’s covered a bit about the history Digg — they started with $2000 and a hire from eLance — and where its going, including new Flash inspired tools and projects, such as the existing Digg Labs.

What seems unanimous is a comment attributed to Mr. Rose, when asked about the recent Circle-Digg controversy — and if he ever planned on paying Top Diggers for their efforts. To Quote Mr. Farber at ZDNet:

On the question of paying submitters (Digg has 500,000 registered users), Rose said that it’s important that there are no outside motivations for contributing to the site. “It’s not that we don’t want to pay people, but we don’t want to discourage people who are not getting paid from submitting quality content,” Rose said.

Now, without a complete transcript — or even being there, its hard to comment on what he really means here. Does he mean that he wants to pay top diggers — but he’s afraid of discouraging the people who are NOT top diggers? I’m not really sure.

I think what he meant to say was that he wants to reinforce a sense of equality amongst Diggers. An esprit de corps. By paying top diggers, perhaps he’s afraid of creating a division between Top Diggers and everyone else; by paying top diggers, he’s afraid of alienating the rest of the digg nation.

Wired mentions:

Rose thinks the Netscape model is poorly thought out because it creates hierarchies that go against the nature of social networks.

Well, the problem is that the Top Diggers are already “apart” from the rest of the digg nation. By virtue of the algorithm — which fundamentally has not changed in this respect — their votes are worth more than the rest of us. Yes, there is a “maximum” threshold to their voting power, and yes, recent changes in the algorithm has made it more difficult for them to have undue influence over the frontpage submissions.

But to suggest that Digg isn’t paying its users because it wants to reinforce a sense of equality and avoid hierarchy is disingenuous at best. There is an existing hierarchy. Digg uses it, exploits it and reinforces it.

In fact, if there are any suggestions to be made, one could suggest that by paying top users, it could act like a bounty. Let it be a “top prize”, rather than bestowing it upon a certain collective of individuals. Let anyone aspire to be a Top Digger (whether they are the top 10, 20 or whatever) try their damndest — and whomever submits the best collect that prize.

Kevin Rose has made some sounds about compensating or recognizing top diggers in some way — for some time; ever since Jason Calacanis made noises about paying $1000/ month for top submitters at Netsacpe.

Well, its been about a little over a month, and some of his top diggers have left already thanks to the circle-digg controversy.

If there’s any a time to do it, it would be about now.